My Works in Progress

HISTORICAL FICTION

At 9:58am on Thursday, 19 February, 1942, the same Japanese task force that had perpetrated the attack on Pearl Harbor swept out of the clear morning sky to sneak attack Port Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Alex Stark, 19, a sailor aboard the USS Peary, finds himself in the middle of the attack against a people and a town and a land that have become as important to him, as much family, as the loved ones he's left behind in rural northern Virginia.

After his time depicted in The Cotton Ginand before his new life depicted in Shooting Star,Myja thumbs his way from the Baja Peninsula to Barrow, Alaska, working odd jobs along the way, meeting his share of oddballs, and leaving more than one girl in more than one port. Unfortunately, his close encounter with his biological father, James, who rejects him, mars this adventure of a lifetime, and Myja spends many a night, staring at the ceiling or at the stars and feeling the rejection -- and its blow to his self-esteem and self-image -- gnaw at him.

The Funeral (novel)

Love, Marriages, & Baby Carriages (novel)

My wife, author Kate Shahan, and I have been co-authoring this multi-family saga for a couple of decades now. At the center of the story is the elderly couple, Berk and Jessie James, who have taken in many a human stray at their large Montana home, Fairwinds.

Myja Beecham, having graduated from Forrest College and satisfied his wanderlust in From Baja to Barrow, ventures to Vermont, where he decides to become a police officer. After his tour in the Vermont Police Academy, he goes to Milltavern Township, where he becomes their newest rookie and comes under the wing of the irascible Officer Carl Trussel, who puts the young police officer through his paces. It's all okay with Myja, though, especially since he's distracted by Carl's beautiful daughter.

SCIENCE FICTION

Huracan (novel)

The Leb Testament (screenplay & novel)

The Party (novel)

Tears of the Thirds (screenplay)

Logan Peterson, 20 years old and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, thinks he just might be losing his mind one day when Bashshar appears literally out of thin air, shoves him to the ground, and sternly orders him, "Leave it be, Peterson" then disappears back into that same thin air. Logan cannot even begin to imagine the path on which this encounter puts him, a path that leads him to the very fate not only of the human race but of the galaxy.

Dickie "Sully" Sullivan has suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hand of his father all his young life, and, now, at 15, he's turned into a sullen, hard-eyed, "look out for number one" bully. There is help, though, and Sully can reclaim the safe, happy childhood his father had no right to take from him.

Genie in a Bottle (story story, fanfiction)

Myja Beecham, 14, is at that awkward age. His solution? He dons costumes (one months, it's "Beat Generation Myja", the next month it's "Springsteen Myja", then it's "Mohawk Myja") in an attempt to find an identity that will finally allow him to feel at peace in his own skin. The problem? Dickie "Sully" Sullivan, who's been bullying him for years, because of his name, now because of how Myja's shot up.

James and Charlie Gustafson, father and son, just have never known how to talk to each other, so, for twenty years, they mostly haven't. This strategy has worked, but, now that a revealed secret threatens to destroy their family, communication is the only thing that's going to save them.